Hello World,

So I sure wish I would have heard about this sooner, but I’m so glad I’m able to help promote it all. Latrice Pace, a member of The Anointed Pace Sisters who are like The Clark Sisters in the metro Atlanta area but who have also established a fan base outside of its borders, is starring as Celie in “The Color Purple,” a play based on Alice Walker’s masterpiece of the same name. I’m so excited for a couple of reasons. Did I tell you I met Alice Walker back in April? If not, well, yes I did! It was affirming as a black author to meet a Georgia-bred author whose work will live beyond her and is known the world over. And I’m also excited because I went to high school with Latrice although it was it her younger sister Lydia who graduated in the same class as I did!

Anyhow, check out the details below!

A great American novel becomes a great American musical. Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning triumph bolts joyously to life with soaring music and unforgettable characters. Celebrating the very best of the human spirit, The Color Purple tells the uplifting story of Celie, a woman who struggles through adversity to find strength, love and the power of her own voice.

Regular Performances
June 16 – July 29
Wednesdays – Saturdays at 8 pm
Sundays at 2 pm

Actor’s Express 
At the King Plow Arts Center
887 West Marietta Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30318

For Ticket Information, Click on THIS LINK!

See a snippet of the play, which has received awesome reviews, below:

AND Latrice has also debuted a new single “Shadow!”

Check it out below:

Any thoughts?

The post Anointed Pace Sister Latrice Pace Stars as Celie in ‘The Color Purple’ at Actor’s Express! appeared first on After the Altar Call.

I am hesitating about writing this blog post because it is so deeply personal, but part of the reason that I love blogs is because it is a way to connect with others through shared revelations…So from time to time, I must reveal…So I’m jumping in the deep water today…Come save me if I go out too far…LOL…

Me at about 10 years old when the teasing started…

Since I was about 10 years old or so, I struggled with insecurities about my looks. My parents always made me feel loved and adored inside the cocoon of our nurturing home, but outside of those walls, I discovered it was a cold world. I don’t remember what boy or girl called me ugly first, but whoever said it first is of no consequence. Those words did what they were intended to do: make me question the beauty that I saw in the mirror.

A year or so later when I started to wear glasses, put on a few pounds and entered middle school, I retreated in the world of books where my favorite authors of the day like Judy Blume, Alice Walker and Brenda Wilkinson affirmed that while I may have been an ugly duckling then, one day the world would see the swan that I was on the inside. I remember trying to explain to my parents that people made fun of my looks at school to no avail. My mother and father believe I’m beautiful, and they just couldn’t fathom that others didn’t see what they saw. Plus, their Jamaican sensibilities didn’t permit a lot of whining and crying so I had to make sense of what was happening on my own.

I remember when I saw the ABC story “Teens Post ‘Am I Pretty or Ugly?’ Videos on YouTube” earlier this year. If YouTube had been in existence then, I would have probably uploaded one of these disturbing videos I was so hungry for outside positive affirmation. While I didn’t have YouTube, I did have Molly Ringwald, and  I identified with her characters in nearly all of her movies although I was a little black girl. I hoped desperately that high school would be different.

In some ways, high school was different. At the white middle school that I attended in Sandy Springs, I was thought to be on the chubby side, but at a black high school in College Park, I was Coke bottle fine. Still, there were a few people that managed to poke holes in my newfound but fragile confidence…As Vivian said in “Pretty Woman,” “The bad things are easier to believe. Haven’t you noticed that?!” And on some days, I could blame no one else than myself…I picked apart my looks feature by feature…

Me in the “Miss Jamaica Atlanta” pageant…

In college, after gaining and losing the Freshman 20 instead of Freshman 15 in my case and investing in contact lenses, I gathered enough confidence to enter the “Miss Jamaica Atlanta” competition. I didn’t win one of the top three spots, but I considered it a victory that I even put myself out there…I even wore a bathing suit…on stage…in front of people…Yikes…

Me fighting adult acne, but fearfully and wonderfully made…

I would like to say that now that I’m in my ’30s (one year from 40 to be exact…Wow,) I am no longer self-conscious and in complete mastery of my self-esteem, but on my worst days when my hair isn’t quite right or another gray hair shows up or I’m fighting adult acne(Wasn’t teen acne enough God?), I’m still that 10-year-old girl…Nevertheless, on my best days, I know that I am fearfully and wonderfully made; I’m learning to know that full well (Psalm 139:14)…

Any thoughts?

P.S. One of my fave TLC songs for obvious reasons-

The post Feeling Unpretty… appeared first on After the Altar Call.

Who Dat?

And that’s pretty much all I’ma say about the Super Bowl…I was gonna write something that had to do with the Super Bowl, but I’ma keep it real…I don’t get into football like that…although I know the Saints will be marching in by the end of the day…How can they lose with a name like that?

So after I saw the third article on this topic, I knew I had to discuss it here on this blog…In one article I read, former Us Weekly Editor-In-Chief Janice Min made more in one paycheck than her husband made in a whole year!!!(Apparently, she made roughly $2 million a year…I would say that is PHENOMENAL for a journalist. READ: Can I get somma dat some day?) According to an article in The New York Times, more men are likely to marry women who earn more money than they do than ever before according to Pew Research Center data….NPR,  in another article,  “Modern Marriages: The Rise of The Sugar Mama,” explored the same topic using the same data. In this article, one husband is married to a woman who works at the same company as he does — except she is two management levels above him. And THREE of his wife’s brothers are in a similar situation…Below is an interesting excerpt from the same article…

“I think this is really an example of an outdated idea,” says Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage: A History. Coontz says that in a 1967 poll, two-thirds of women said they’d consider marrying a man they did not love if he had good earnings potential.

“Now, women have a completely different point of view,” Coontz says. “They say overwhelmingly — 87 percent — that it’s more important to have a man who can communicate well, who can be intimate and who will share the housework than to have someone who makes more money than you do.”

So how do y’all feel about that? Could you marry a man who makes less than you do? A friend and I were discussing relationships yesterday as we often do. We talked about how some of us who are still in the game (the dating game) still tout money as one of the main qualities that a eligible man must have. She said the term “love” rarely comes up as a quality – meaning that women rarely talk about a man loving them as an important quality. She cited a Bible verse…

 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her… However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:25-33

In sum, husbands are commanded to love their wives, and women are commanded to respect their husbands…So I wonder if women need to look at love as the most important quality to look for in a man…But then again, some women may not be able to respect a man if his earning potential is less than hers…

But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.  I Timothy 5:18

Now to be fair, providing for your household does not mean that you have to make more in my opinion. It does means that you have to provide your share…But some women may interpret that verse as meaning that a man must make more money than they do…What do you think? What do I think…

Well, when I was in j-school (journalism school), I found out pretty quickly that journalism was not one of the careers you chose if you are simply trying to get paid…People typically become journalists become they love the written word and have an insatiable curiousity. (READ: Me in a nutshell.) And now that our country is in its current economic state, journalism, as y’all probably know,  has become even less lucrative across the board…With that in mind, would it make sense for me to marry a man that makes less than I do…I’m honestly not sure…but judging from what I’ve seen in the news, some of the world’s richest, most powerful men make the worst husbands…And then again, just because a man is not rich and powerful doesn’t mean that he’s a keeper either…

Any thoughts?

To honor Black History Month, I will offer a memorable quote from someone in black history on each post I write this month…

“No person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow and be perceived as fully blossomed as you were intended.”  Alice Walker….(Did y’all know that Alice Walker has a blog?)

The post The Rise of the Alpha Female…and the men they choose to marry… appeared first on After the Altar Call.